Vanasee has won stakes races at 2, 3 and 4, and on Sunday she will attempt to continue the trend at 5. Vanasee will be making her second start of the year in the $40,000 Columbine, a 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares at Arapahoe Park in Aurora, Colo.

Vanasee is one of six stakes winners in the eight-horse field that also includes Lady  Contender, winner of the recent $40,000 George Wafer Memorial at Arapahoe, and Unloch the Fury, the runner-up in last year’s Columbine who could go favored off an allowance score at SunRay Park in New Mexico.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Eddie Plesa may not get the acclaim for his success with 2-year-olds as say Todd Pletcher or Wesley Ward, but the 63-year-old trainer has certainly done well this year, winning with 30 percent of his juvenile starters.

Sunday, Plesa mixes it up with Pletcher and Ward when he sends out Brave Dave in the Grade 2, $200,000 Sanford Stakes for 2-year-old males at Saratoga. Brave Dave will be Plesa’s first starter at Saratoga since Aug. 22, 2010. He is seeking his first win here since Aug. 12, 2005.

Sassy City was named the James Moseley Horse of the Year for 2011 in New England on Thursday night at the region’s turf writers’ awards dinner.

Owned by Kathleen Botty and trained by her husband, John Botty, the mare won twice last year and placed in the Grade 3 Endine Stakes at Delaware Park. She is 5 for 9 at Suffolk Downs with three second-place finishes. A win last summer at Monmouth Park locked up the award as well as the trophy for champion older female. It is the second straight New England Horse of the Year for the Bottys after Lovethatdirtywater won for his 2010 campaign.

DEL MAR, Calif. – The presence of the Grade 1 winner Eden’s Moon in Sunday’s $150,000 San Clemente Handicap on turf at Del Mar does not reflect a long-term surface switch for the inconsistent filly.

Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert considers the Grade 2 San Clemente Handicap over a mile to be an experiment, one that could provide further options in the future.

“I want to see if she likes it,” Baffert said of turf.

Eden’s Moon worked a half-mile in 48.40 seconds on turf last Monday.

OCEANPORT. N.J. – Monmouth Park is gearing up for Haskell Day on July 29, the biggest day of the meet, and the fields for the seven stakes are taking shape.

The $1 million Haskell Invitational for 3-year-olds is the main event, and the current headliners are Paynter, hard-luck loser in the Belmont Stakes, and Blue Grass winner Dullahan.

Stakes coordinator Dan Dufford also expects Le Bernardin, winner of the Grade 3 Pegasus earlier this meet, and either Ohio Derby and Tampa Bay Derby winner Prospective or Stealcase from trainer Mark Casse.

Locksley Hall and Juan Might look like the main players in a $15,000 claiming race for 3-year-olds and up that will serve as Sunday’s feature at Northlands Park. The 6 1/2-furlong sprint drew seven horses and goes as the seventh race.

Terrific Synergy stood quiet and focused in the starting gate before a division of the Governor’s Cup Derby trials at Los Alamitos on July 14. For a change, he was behaving himself.

There was no fidgety behavior, even when a rival needed time to settle.

The result was evident. After a relatively clean start, Terrific Synergy delivered a brilliant performance. The gelding won the 400-yard trial by the widest margin of his career, 2 1/4 lengths, to set the fastest qualifying time of 19.58 seconds. He is expected to start favored in the $250,000-projected final on July 28.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – The connections of Cry Cry Cry had every reason to shed tears after she was much the best but had her number taken down for causing interference out of the gate in a $25,000 claiming sprint for fillies and mares July 1. She’ll try to make amends when she stretches out to a mile and a sixteenth in Sunday’s feature at Hastings. The $25,000 claiming race for fillies and mares drew seven horses and Cry Cry Cry is the horse they will have to catch and beat.

FORT ERIE, Ontario – One of the most dangerous places in horse racing is the starting gate, where high-spirited horses are ready to spring when the bell rings. Just after entering the gate for the final race Tuesday, jockey Daniel David’s horse reared, and crushed his leg against the stall.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario — The New York shipper Imagining will meet two sharp local runners, Riding the River and Pender Harbour, over 1 1/8 miles on the turf Sunday in the $300,000 Nijinsky Stakes at Woodbine.

Imagining is a rare Woodbine starter for trainer Shug McGaughey, who has a host of good older grass runners. He has found a way to keep them apart by sending Imagining north of the border for the Grade 2 Nijinsky, in which he should be favored under Eddie Castro.